Climate Bills Needs Better Worker Protections

by Joe Uehlein The Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) released a White Paper on November 12 arguing that current House and Senate climate bills do not do enough to protect workers, and laying out an alternative strategy for worker protection. The White Paper, Climate Legislation Must Provide a Just Transition for Workers, kicks of the [...]

Trumka: Free Elections not possible in Honduras

Image via Wikipedia Trumka: Free Elections Not Possible Now in Honduras Posted By James Parks On November 16, 2009 (2:26 pm) In on AFL-CIO blog. The continued repression of trade unionists by the regime set up in Honduras after a June 28 coup makes it impossible to hold free and fair elections, says AFL-CIO President [...]

Global unions call for low-carbon future and just transition

Image via Wikipedia With governments downplaying prospects for December’s UN climate summit and the chances of a binding agreement receding fast, the international trade union movement has called on governments to go to Copenhagen ready to make decisions that will put the world on an unequivocal path to a low-carbon future. “The science shows clearly [...]

Leaving SEIU and Joining NUHW: An Open Letter to my SEIU friends, former co-workers, and all SEIU members and staff

By Paul Krehbiel As a former staff worker for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 660 (now 721) in Los Angeles from 1998 – 2007, I am appalled by the degeneration of SEIU under the direction of President Andy Stern. While Local 660 had its share of problems, it had been in many respects a [...]

Attack on Public Sector in North America will Deepen the Economic Crisis in 2010

by Paul Garver Talking Union has not paid nearly enough attention to the growing impact of the economic crisis on the public sector and on public sector employees. Many of our readers belong to public sector unions, while all of us have already been hurt in one way or another by increasingly savage cuts in [...]

The Jobs Summit

Image by Getty Images via Daylife Excellent video summaries of the recent EPI Job summit hosted by the AFL-CIO. http://www.youtube.com/aflcionow

Actions Taken across U.S. to Stop Wage Theft

Wage theft has been called “the crime wave no one talks about,” but now that’s changing. Last Thursday, people in more than 40 cities around the country not only talked about the national crisis – one that annually robs millions of workers – but took a variety of concrete steps to combat it. Workers, community [...]

Stop Violence Against Women Day: Unions Act Globally and Locally

Image via Wikipedia ITUC On the occasion of the UN International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the ITUC and affiliates in a range of countries are organizing activities to say “no to violence against women and girls” and to mobilize against the impunity of that violence around the world. These activities are [...]

Pink Sheeting One on Ones

by Wade Rathke Obviously an article in the Times by Steven Greenhouse entitled, “Some Organizers Protest Their Union’s Tactics,” would catch my eye. One reads it with some peril given the bricks still being thrown from one glass window or another between SEIU and UNITE HERE, but despite that caveat, it’s worth serious attention. The [...]

Spend Your Break Fighting for Justice

by Marlan Maralit Are you a college senior considering a career in social change and want to help make change happen in the world around you? Do you believe that a strong labor movement is vital to fighting back the attacks on working families, on health care, and the very fabric of what makes our [...]